thehrvault.blogspot.com

The theHRvault blog focuses on topics that relate to the workplace, leadership, management, customer service and office politics. I will also be answering readers questions about professional and career development.

Monday, 15 January 2018

How to set SMART Goals to achieve your New Year's Resolutions

Have you made your New Year’s Resolutions yet? I have been asked this question one too many times in the past few weeks.

Every year millions of people around the world make New Year’s Resolutions, we resolve to accomplish personal goals, change undesired behaviour or even improve our lives one way of the other. A study from the University of Scranton conducted research on 200 people who made New Year’s resolutions, it revealed that people who made resolutions were 10 times more likely to make a positive change after six months compared to people who wanted to change but did not make a New Year’s resolution. So how do you set SMART new years’ resolutions? Here is how.

1.Get specific

Your resolution should be absolutely clear. A good goal is a specific goal. It tells you not only what you eventually hope to accomplish, but also the steps you must take to get there. Instead of simply resolving to “get out of debt,” a specific goal specifies the type and amount of debt, as well steps that can take to achieve that goal e.g. “I want to reduce my credit card debt by R 4000.00 by 14 April 2018, and will do so by increasing minimum payments each month.”

2.Track Your Progress

The next step is to define how you will measure your progress in reaching your goals, make sure that the measure of your progress is quantifiable. If you plan to lose weight, know exactly how many kilograms you will lose, and exactly how you will measure your progress. If you don’t measure your progress toward your goal, it will be impossible for you to figure out if you’re on track, therefore be sure to include exactly how you will measure your progress, as well as how often you will measure.

3.Make small, attainable goals

You can set ambitious goals, but make sure that you break down the goals into attainable steps. if your goal is to exercise more, don’t promise to hit the gym seven days a week. Instead, start small, twice a week and after a couple months re-evaluate if you want to step things up a notch.

4.Be Realistic

We’ve all been told that we should set goals, and we assume that we can – but most of us have never been taught how to set goals effectively so they are realistic and achievable. If your goal is unrealistic, or not well defined, then you’re setting yourself up for a failure.

5.Plan a time-frame

Time creates urgency, your goals should be time-based because, without a deadline, you can easily procrastinate and delay your progress toward attaining your goal. Time frames are your barometer for success, the way you assess your short-term progress towards the ultimate long-term goal.

It is easy to become a dreamer or an idealist when it comes to New Year’s resolutions, but always remember that your New Year’s resolutions are a tool to help you grow into a person you want to be, therefore creating New Year’s resolutions that are Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-based is one of the most powerful strategies. Much as it is a tedious process...it is a necessary process.

Sunday, 27 November 2016

THE BENEFITS OF TEMPORARY recruitment

Often when companies need to hire staff, the first thing they consider is to hire a permanent staff member, these appointments come with on-going monthly employee benefits and additional payroll administration. If one looks at the cost associated with hiring a permanent employee, it is sometimes worthwhile partnering with a recruitment agency that can provide temporary employees.

There are many benefits to hiring employees on a temporary basis via a recruitment agency:

Flexibility

Temporary staff can fill the void instantly especially when staff members are on vacation, maternity leave or when there is an urgent need for more staff members during busy periods. As the employer, you have the flexibility to decide on how long the temporary staff service is required for, at an all-inclusive rate.

There’s less direct responsibility

One of the biggest benefits to sourcing staff from an agency is that the pressure isn’t directly on you. A recruitment agency will take over the whole process; the agency becomes the employer and takes over all administrative procedures, responsibilities and liabilities that come with hiring an employee.

Evaluation

Hiring temporary staff provides you with an opportunity to evaluate the employee performance without committing to any full-time employment. It’s almost like a long interview process.

If your company is urgently looking to place a candidate and has no time to search and interview someone, a Temp may be available to you through an agency.

Pakanyo HR Solutions is an HR Solutions company that specialises in Recruitment of Permanent, Temporary and Contract Hire. For more information please call contact us on 011 046 9667 or email us on info@pakanyo.co.za

Tuesday, 25 October 2016

How to Measure Return on Investment (ROI) in Training

The ROI guru Jack Phillips defined return on Investment (ROI) as “a measure of the financial benefits obtained by an organisation over a specified period in return for a given investment in a training programme.” There comes a time where management needs to review and reflect on its training and development activities against its mission and vision. This process allows for critical questions to be asked, such as how relevant is the HRD function, how effective and most of all is the money invested adding any value?

Throughout my training career, I have observed how training professional focus on measures of attendance, completion, and delegates satisfaction to determine the success of training initiatives. The biggest challenge with this approach is that over the years it has failed to help business understand the impact of training on the organisation. Measuring the return on investment of training programmes is not only a necessary exercise but also an effective way to show the powers that be, that there’s financial value in training investing in training. So how do you determine if your investment in training is worthwhile?

Here are some useful step on how to calculate your return on a training investment (or the ROI in training):

STEP 1: UNDERSTAND THE BUSINESS NEED

You need to ask yourself what are the challenges the business is facing, this could range from customer services issue, performance management, conflict situations in the workplace. This is a critical step as defines the way forward.

STEP 2: IS TRAINING IS THE RIGHT SOLUTION

When most organisation experience challenges, the assumption is always that training can fix those challenges; training isn’t always the solution to problems. Do determine if training is a need; ask yourself the two questions, do employees know how to perform the job? Do they know the product? The answer to this will determine if training is indeed a need.

STEP 3: DEFINE THE OUTCOMES FOR THE TRAINING

In order to determine the learning outcomes, think about the challenge that the business has and ask yourself what will the training intervention achieve? What skills should the participant walk away with? Always make sure that the outcomes are directly related to the business need.

STEP 4: DESIGN THE TRAINING PROGRAM

Part of the design process it is important to understand what type of training is compatible with your target audience and the outcomes you need to achieve. i.e. is it going to be classroom based, how long will the training be, the training activities involved, the type of equipment needed and lastly what type of support is required after the training to make sure that new knowledge and skills are transferred into the workplace?

STEP 5: DEFINE YOUR METRICS

In this step, you need to determine how you will measure the success of the training programme. For example, if the organisation is experiencing issues with productivity, the intended outcome would be, increase productivity. The metrics to measure the success of the training could be, the percentage increase in productivity is, after the training intervention.

STEP 6: CONDUCT THE TRAINING & MEASURE YOUR RETURN ON INVESTMENT

After the training intervention, track the metrics you have identified, monitor changes on a regular basis and determine the success of training, if productivity improves and this improvement is worth more than the total cost of the training, then there is a positive return on your training investment.

Remember change will not happen immediately, you need to give the participants’ time to apply their new skill and knowledge.

Wednesday, 6 July 2016

Great Customer service is essential for any organisation to survive in a
long run. Yes, there are a variety of elements that create a successful
business; however customer service is at a centre stage of that. Organisations
providing good customer service are successful in retaining existing customers
and building long- term relationships with them. Therefore, I cannot
overemphasise the importance of customer service training.

Some of the benefits of training customer service staff are as follow:

1.Improved
Customer Service Skills:

Although all training interventions
are meant to improve the knowledge or skill set of an individual, but when it
comes to customer services the focus is on improving communication, listening
skills, problem-solving and managing human relations more effectively and
organizational skills.

It is advisable that all employees
undergo training that has the same set of competencies; this will give your
entire workforce a standard process to deal with customer issues or questions
and creates a sense of team spirit at the same time.

.

2.Increases
profitability:

The formula is simple; improved
customer service + increased customer satisfaction + increased customer loyalty
= an increase in profit. Great service allows the company to achieve higher
customer retention, acquire new customers, reduces employee turnover and
increases sales. The training has a great impact on employee motivation and
morale, which leads to increased productivity.

3.Enhances
Customer Experience:

Customer service training workshops
have the potential to change the behaviors of employees consequently will help
them deliver a better customer experience, these workshops teach employees to
develop a customer-centric approach, encouraging them to be empathetic to
customers.

A variety of training activities and
games can be developed in order to enhance the customer-centric philosophy
which goes a long way to deliver and improve the overall experience for
customers.

4.Increased
Employee Retention:

According to a study 40% percent of
employees who receive poor job training leave within the first year, to a large
extent this impact on the companies' ability to maintain the same customer
service standards. High turnover is problematic for the business as it adds to
the cost of re-hiring and training as well.

Providing adequate training and
upgrading the skills set of employees is likely to encourage them to stay with
the company since it signals a potential for personal growth and development.

5.Improve
reputation and standing

Despite the fact some customers may
choose to leave because of the cheaper price elsewhere, countless customers
will remain because of the great experience.
There's a quote that says "Customer services inspires stories"
What that basically means is if customers have bad experiences with the
organisation, the news will spread very fast and potentially hurt the
organisation's reputation So, if you manage to deliver an enjoyable experience,
which comes about through well trained, motivated and knowledgeable staff, your
customers are sure to pass on favourable recommendations and reviews.

Monday, 18 April 2016

It's pretty
amazing how you always hear managers complain about their best employees
leaving, the truth is, the departure of any good employee can be costly and
very disruptive to the company. There
are a number of reasons why employees decide to up and leave the company. Most
of them are not personal, but they are a sign of a poor workplace environment.

Managers have to realise that in most cases employees don't leave the company
but they leave them instead. This can easily be avoided; all that is required
is a new perspective and some extra effort on the manager's part.

Here
are the common mistakes that happen in a workplace that cause the employee to
leave:

1.Promotion Issues

Many
employees leave jobs because there is no upward mobility, no matter how hard
they work or how well they succeed, there are no opportunities for advancement
into higher and more demanding positions. Alternatively, when you have worked your tail
off only to get passed over for a promotion that is given to a colleague who is
less qualified or less capable, now that is a massive insult!

No
wonder good people leave.

2.When hard work is not recognised

It's
easy to underestimate the power of a pat on the back, especially to the
company's top performers who are highly motivated. Managers to need to
communicate with their people to find out what makes them feel good, as for
some might be an incentive while others are public recognition.

When
employees do good work, they should be recognized financially and publicly.
Otherwise, someone else will.

3.Managers don't care about their employees.

Employees
don't need to be friends with their boss but they need to have some sort of a
good working relationship. A majority of employees leave their jobs because the
relationship with their managers is fractured. Smart companies invest in up-skilling their
managers on how to balance being professional and the human relation aspect. This will go a long way in ensuring that bosses
celebrate employees’ success, empathize with those going through hard times,
and challenge people, even when it hurts. Bosses who fail to really care will
always have high turnover rates.

It's
impossible to work for someone eight-plus hours a day when they aren't
personally involved and don't care about anything other than your production
yield.

4.Poor Management

According
to research, one of the major reasons cited in exit interviews is bad
management. Bad management practices deflate employee morale; causes stress and
cost the company more than just the cost of high turnover. Managers need to have sufficient emotional
intelligence and interpersonal skills to manage people; therefore, companies
need to invest in empowering their manager in training soft skills.

5. A Toxic Work
Environment

A
toxic work environment is any job where the work, the atmosphere, the people,
or any combination of those things makes you so dismayed it causes serious
disruptions in your life. Organisations need a workplace culture where people
can unplug and relax, something as seemingly minor as snacks at meetings can
make a big difference, planned social events can also go far to gain employee
loyalty and forestall a toxic work environment.

As a manager, if
you want your best people to stay, you need to think carefully about your
conduct and how you treat your employees.
You need to create an environment that makes them want to work for you.

Tuesday, 5 April 2016

In a study done by Career Builder survey
in 2012, it was reported that 69 percent of employers reported that their
companies have been adversely affected by hiring a wrong person that year, with
41 percent of those businesses estimating the cost to be over $25,000, for
smaller companies where every employee often juggles many important
responsibilities, the cost of bad hire can be even more devastating.

Here
are some of the effects of hiring a wrong person:

The Financial Cost

Making
a wrong appointment not only wastes the company’s time, it costs money because you
are not only paying a salary to someone who can’t perform to your
expectations, but might incur additional training costs and in extreme cases you
may also incur the cost of severance pay where the employee is let go.

The Employee Low
Morale

When
you are spending your time and money trying to correct your mistake of hiring
the wrong person, the rest of your team may become disengaged; it’s difficult
to stay upbeat when one team member requires so much attention or manages
to bring the whole team down. As a
manager you stand a risk of some staff questioning your judgment and will start to doubt the company’s leadership.

The Reputation of the
business

The
company’s reputation can weaken as customers come to realize that the company
is performing below the required standards. Your company brand will be jeopardised
if you continue keeping an unsuitable person in the company.

Managers Lose Time

If you have ever supervised a
poorly performing employee, you know how time-consuming it can be and as a
manager you need to work harder to maintain team moral and make sure that
service delivery is not negatively affected. Your team goals may take longer to
achieve as time is wasted on performance reviews and potentially ‘fixing’
problems that were made.

Rather
than wasting all the time and money making bad recruitment choices, the next
time you need to recruit, make sure of the following:

Saturday, 26 March 2016

It is a tradition to set goals at the beginning of each year, but sticking to those goals proves to be very challenging. According to numerous researches only 3% of people set goals, why so low I ask?

Another study conducted on students by Mark McCormack at Harvard MBA program, 1979, in that he asked students the following questions: "Have you set clear, written goals for your future and made plans to accomplish them?" Only 3% of the graduates had written goals and plans; 13% had goals, but they were not in writing; and 84% had no specific goals at all. Ten years later, the same members of the class were interviewed again, and the findings were incredible. The 13% of the class who had goals were earning, on average, twice as much as the 84% who had no goals at all. What about the 3% who had clear, written goals? They were earning, on average, ten times as much as the other 97% put together. All this proves that Goal Setting is a fundamental component of successful goal achievement; it gives you clarity on what you ultimately want and by far the most important exercise in ones’ life.

Below are 5 key reasons why setting goals is so important:

1.It Gives You Clarity

Setting your goals gives you clarity on what you want to achieve. It helps you crystallize and articulate your heart desires and ensure that you put time, energy and effort into things that really matter in your life. It makes youlive more consciously.

2.It Drives You

Your goals are a representation of your inner desires; desires that motivate and inspire you. They are a source of motivation and the fuel that drives you when the going gets tough. When you don’t have goals, it is easy to find yourself getting distracted by everything that’s going on around you.

Until you clearly articulate what you want as a specific goal, you are not channeling your efforts properly. You may think you are driving in the certain direction, but with no clearly defined goals, you have no focus.

3.It gives you focus

Your goals help you focus your time, efforts and energy on exactly what needs to be achieved. When you don’t have goals, you find yourself wondering around every day, have you ever found yourself surfing the net or chatting excessively or maybe running errands that play no role in your larger scope of life but you are not aware because you are just living life as it is? A goal acts as your funnel which guides and channels those inputs effectively into your desired output.

Remember No Goals…No Focus.

4.Makes You Accountable

Setting goals makes you accountable. Having someone, alongside you to make you accountable is extremely important. It enables you to have someone who's always reminding you of when you're falling behind on your goals and keeps you motivated to remain on track.

It creates positive pressure.

5. Achieve Your Potential

Humans are creatures of comfort, there is nothing wrong with being in your comfort zone, unless you get too comfortable and start holding yourself back instead of challenging yourself to learn, grow and try new things. Your goals will help you step out of your comfort zone and allow you to reach new heights by giving you challenges that can make you better.

Start Setting Goals,make a habit of daily goal setting and achieving, for the rest of your life. Focus on the things you want, rather than the things you don't want.